Nick Perry / AP

John Rose stands in a field on his dairy farm in New Zealand on Thursday. A drought on the country's North Island is costing farmers millions of dollars each day and is beginning to take a toll on the country's economy.

Authorities in Wellington, New Zealand, have issued an outright ban on outdoor water use as a worsening drought has siphoned the available supply to less than half of normal level and prompted the government to declare the worst water shortage in 30 years.

New Zealand's capital, home to more than 200,000 people, has just 19 days' supply of water left in its reservoirs, the APNZ news service reported.

"The water supply situation is now approaching extreme," the Greater Wellington Regional Council said in a statement on its website, adding that it is also asking residents to cut indoor water use "to help us avoid a crisis."

Wellington hasn't seen a significant rain since Feb. 4, and while a storm is forecast for this weekend, it will have no real impact on the water supply, authorities said. All of the North Island, which holds most of the country's population, has been declared a drought zone. Auckland on Thursday issued an outdoor fire ban.

The Wellington City Council said urgent action had to be taken to ensure that homes and businesses had sufficient water.

"Water levels in our local rivers -- the source of our water supply -- are extremely low and dropping," the council said in a statement. "A significant reduction in demand for water will extend the number of days that back-up storage will last, so it’s important to save water now."

The drought has had a major impact on farmers, who estimate that it has so far cost them $820 million in lost export earnings, The Associated Press reported, adding that the damage is rising daily as they reduce their herds, which in turn reduces milk production.

"We are beginning to see a decline in milk production -- in fact, a sharp decline in some areas -- and farmers are considering slaughtering capital stock, which will result in lower future production and reduced revenue," New Zealand Finance Minister Bill English said Tuesday during a Parliament meeting.

Brett Phibbs / AP

Fields are turning from their normal green to a dry and crunchy brown as the drought worsens.

"It's very hard to remember when the last rainfall was," dairy farmer John Rose told the AP, adding that he had sent more than 100 of his cows to slaughter in recent weeks as the drought turned pastures brown and dry. He said the move was necessary to make sure his remaining 550 cows had enough to eat -- a challenge even as he mixes in palm kernels with their feed to try to stretch it.

Like most farmers, he's concerned about the future, as are some government officials.

"We know the drought will peg back growth in the economy, but it is not yet clear by how much," English told Parliament.

Even if the current drought eases soon, the long-term picture isn't rosy, according to climate scientists.

The government's National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research predicts that farmers in the southern part of the North Island, the area around Wellington, will spend up to 10 percent more time per year in drought by the middle of the century.

More NBC News coverage of New Zealand

A man was attacked and killed by a shark Wednesday off the coast of New Zealand, police said.

Local media identified the victim as 46-year-old Adam Strange, an award-winning director of short films.

The victim was swimming about 200 yards offshore from Muriwai Beach, just west of Auckland, when he was attacked, New Zealand Police Inspector Shawn Rutene said.

Witnesses called police and lifeguards quickly jumped into action when the attack occurred about 1:30 p.m. local time Wednesday (7:30 p.m. ET Tuesday), but it was too late to save the man, the New Zealand Herald newspaper reported.

Police and lifeguards quickly took to the water in inflatable rescue boats, and officers opened fire on the shark, which "rolled over and disappeared," Rutene said in his statement, adding that the shark was estimated to be 12 to 14 feet long.

Phil Walter / Getty Images

People grieve outside Muriwai Surf Lifesaving Club after a swimmer died in a fatal shark attack at Muriwai Beach on Wednesday.

Authorities said they had closed Muriwai and nearby beaches as the investigation continued.

Shark attacks are uncommon in New Zealand, according to the University of Florida's Museum of Natural History.

According to the museum's International Shark Attack File, there had been just 48 confirmed attacks, eight of them fatal, since 1852. Those numbers did not include Wednesday's incident.

Neighboring Australia has had 510 confirmed attacks, 144 of them fatal, since 1700, according to the museum's figures, which it says were current as of Feb. 11.

In a biography on Strange's website, he described himself as an avid outdoorsman. 

"When I get a spare 5 minutes, I like to make a fruit smoothy, surf some big waves out on the West Coast," the site says.

The New Zealand Herald reported that Strange had a wife and a baby daughter. "The family are grieving the loss of a glorious and great father, husband and friend," the family said in a statement reported by the newspaper.

A short film by Strange, "Aphrodite's Farm," won a Crystal Bear award for Best Short Film for people over 14 at the 2009 Berlin International Film Festival, according to the Internet Movie Database, or IMDb.com.

Strange said in his biography that he had made television commercials before turning to short film.

Related:

Kill sharks before they attack humans? Australian state will do just that

Fatal shark attacks in 2011 at 20-year high

Great white sharks swimming to extinction?

Lynn M. Arnold / National Science Foundation via AP

A De Havilland Twin Otter like the one missing since Wednesday lands at the National Science Foundation's Amundsen-Scott South Pole Station in 2003.

Bad weather continued to stop rescuers from searching for a Canadian airplane that went missing in Antarctica with three people on board, officials in New Zealand rescue team said Friday. 

Though winds, which had been blowing at over 100 mph, had calmed to just over 20 mph by 5 p.m. Friday New Zealand time (11 p.m. ET Thursday), conditions would not allow sighting of the downed twin-engine airplane.

"Visibility is down to (1,300 feet) and the snow is almost horizontal," Kevin Branaghan, an official with Rescue Coordination Center New Zealand, said in a statement. "The weather is expected to improve slightly after 12-24 hours."

The plane, owned by Kenn Borek Air of Calgary, Alberta, was on its way from the U.S.-run Amundsen-Scott South Pole station to Italy’s Mario Zucchelli station while supporting an Italian research project, according to the National Science Foundation, which manages U.S. programs on the icy continent.

It took off at about 3 a.m. ET Wednesday and flew for an hour before its emergency locator beacon was detected in New Zealand, which is responsible for monitoring that section of Antarctica.

The beacon was tracked to a spot about 11,000 feet above sea level at the northern end of the Queen Alexandra Mountain range, some 400 miles from the aircraft’s departure point near the South Pole, rescue-team spokesman Michael Flyger said Thursday.

Hours of flyovers by aircraft from the United States, Canada and New Zealand proved fruitless because of cloud cover and blowing snow, he said.

'Extremely cold'
Kenn Borek Air said in a Thursday statement that weather had kept another of its planes from landing at a makeshift airbase 35 miles from the site of the locator beacon.

The company has otherwise released little information, saying it is "maintaining a respectful silence" until the fate of the plane is known.

If the plane has crashed, any survivors would have faced extreme conditions in the mountains, Rescue Coordination Center spokesman Flyger said Thursday.

"It’s a cold place to start with," he said. "The elevation is around 11,000 feet so ... combined with the wind and snow ... it’s going to be extremely cold."

Flyger noted that the crew was carrying heavy-duty, cold-weather gear and a five-day supply of water.

"We are still operating with the expectation that we will find them alive," his colleague Branaghan said Friday.

The search-and-rescue team's website, however, referred to searching for a "crash site."

Related:

100 mph winds halt search for missing plane

Plane with 3 on board missing near South Pole

(Editor's note: This story includes a correction.)

Howling winds and snow grounded an effort Thursday to find a small plane missing in a mountainous area of Antarctica for more than two days, rescuers said.

The twin-engine plane, carrying three Canadian crew members, was about an hour into a flight from the U.S.-run Amundsen-Scott South Pole Station to an Italian research station at Terra Nova Bay, when its emergency beacon was heard by rescue officials in Wellington, New Zealand, at about 10 p.m. local time Wednesday (4 a.m. ET)

The company that owns the plane, Kenn Borek Air Ltd. of Calgary, Alberta, said it was "maintaining a respectful silence" until the fate of the plane and its crew was known.

The Calgary Sun newspaper identified one of those aboard the plane as Bob Heath of the Northwest Territories, calling him a "star pilot" for Kenn Borek Air.

www.nsf.gov

A file photo shows a twin-engine Otter, the type of plane missing in Antarctica with three Canadians aboard.

The newspaper quoted Heath’s wife Lucy Heath as saying she was “worried” and “waiting for news.”

A search plane spent about five hours circling over the site of the beacon, which is in a mountainous area, but heavy cloud cover hampered the search and then the weather got worse, officials said.

Winds have topped 100 mph and it was also snowing, Michael Flyger, spokesman for New Zealand’s Rescue Coordination Center, said.

He added he hoped the next weather forecast "will bring good news,” enabling the search to continue.

Five-day water supply
The beacon’s signal is coming from an area about 11,000 feet above sea level, Flyger said.

"It’s pretty mountainous terrain. It’s impossible to say whether it crashed or made an emergency landing or they had a mechanical problem and had to ditch the plane," he said. "At the moment we have a plane that’s not where it should be and a locator beacon is going off."

The beacon can be switched on manually, but it also would begin transmitting if sensors detected a crash, Flyger said.

Despite the conditions in the area, there may be reason for optimism, he added.

"We do know that onboard the aircraft there was a significant amount of survival equipment — heavy-duty mountain tents, enough water for three people for five days,” he said. “They’ve certainly got the equipment to look after themselves."

The National Science Foundation, which manages the U.S. Antarctic Program, said the plane was flying in support of Italian Antarctic research.

Searchers from the United States, Italy and Canada are assisting in New Zealand's efforts and have helicopters and airplanes ready to return to the site, Flyger said, adding that the the ideal scenario would be for a helicopter to either land or use a winch to bring up survivors.

"If conditions are good enough, hopefully we can land a short distance away and the team will walk to the crash site," he said.  "There’s some frustration that the weather has been the way it’s been. The searchers are very keen to get in and crack on with the job."

"We’re very aware that not only are there people out there who need our help, but there are people ... wanting to know what’s going on. We hope to be able to give some good news."

Related:

Plane with 3 on board missing near South Pole

Soe Zeya Tun / Reuters

People celebrate at Myanmar's first public New Year countdown celebration at the Myoma grounds in Yangon January 1, 2013.

Updated at 5:05 a.m. ET: As the clock struck midnight in each new timezone starting with in the Pacific Rim it was met with spectacular shows from Sydney to Beijing.

In Myanmar, where citizens were holding their first public countdown, the jubilation was at least as heartfelt, even if set against a humbler backdrop. It signaled a new year, as well as a new era of expanding democracy after five decades of military rulers who discouraged or banned public gatherings.

"We feel like we are in a different world," said Yu Thawda, a college student enjoying the festivities in Yangon, the capital.

Not every celebration was imbued with the same degree of hopefulness.

In Russia, Moscow's iconic Red Square was filled with spectators as fireworks exploded near the Kremlin. President Vladimir Putin gave an optimistic New Year's Eve address, making no reference to the anti-government protests that have occurred in his country in the past year.

Russians were marking their last New Year’s Eve with unfettered access to beer. New restrictions preventing sale of suds overnight or at street kiosks go into effect Jan. 1, part of a government effort to curb alcoholism.

Beer now considered alcohol, not food, in Russia

"You have to stock at home. And stocking beer is more problematic than stocking vodka," brewing industry official Isaac Sheps told London’s Daily Telegraph. "It’s bulky. It’s big."

In austerity-hit Europe, the mood was also restrained as 2012 came to a close. The coming year is projected to be a sixth straight one of recession amid Greece's worst economic crisis since World War II. In fact, the new year was starting with a 24-hour strike by subway and train workers in Athens to protest salary cuts that are part of the government's austerity measures.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel's New Year's message warned her country to prepare for difficult economic times ahead. Nicosia, the capital of Cyprus, decided to cancel celebrations in light of the economic crisis.

Slideshow: Celebrations as 2013 dawns

Damian Shaw / EPA

From Sydney to Siberia, revelers celebrate the arrival of a new year.

Launch slideshow

Celebrating New Year's Eve with a vespers service in St. Peter's Basilica, Pope Benedict XVI said that despite all the injustice in the world, goodness prevails. In Spain, where a recession has left unemployment at a staggering 25 percent, people are hoping for a better new year.

In London, the chimes of the clock inside the Big Ben tower counted down the final seconds of 2012 and fireworks dazzled the sky above Parliament Square. Streamers shot out of the London Eye wheel and blazing rockets launched from the banks of the River Thames.

One night of revelries wasn't enough for some people.

Scotland launched the annual festival known as Hogmanay on Sunday night with thousands of torchbearers marching in Edinburgh, drawing inspiration from pagan traditions. The Scotsman newspaper estimated that 7,000 people participated in the "river of fire" through the city center.

The fete was set to last until Wednesday and draw 80,000 revelers from around the world, according to the official Hogmanay website.

New laws ban sex with prisoners, hound-hunting of bobcats, etc.

First across the line to 2013
The new year’s westward march across the globe began with Samoa ushering in 2013 a full day before the clock strikes midnight in neighboring American Samoa.

It’s a quirk of the international dateline, which Samoa moved a year ago, giving it a jump on the jubilation that erupts as the earth bids farewell to one year and welcomes another, time zone by time zone.

The celebration started small in places like Christmas Island, an Australian territory, and Kiribati, an equator-straddling chain of islands in the Pacific, at 5 a.m. ET Monday.

An hour later, Auckland, New Zealand, became the first major city to begin a new calendar, with fireworks shot from the Sky Tower, the tallest structure in the Southern Hemisphere at 1,076 feet.

The really big parties started, though, when the new year reached Australia at 8 a.m. ET. More than a million revelers gathered in Sydney’s harbor for a massive $6.9 million pyrotechnics party hosted by pop star Kylie Minogue.

Slideshow: New Year's traditions

Mariana Bazo / Reuters

We may have different calendars, customs and beliefs, but most of us mark the arrival of a new year. Take a look at the ways cultures around the world celebrate and bring good luck for the year ahead.

Launch slideshow

Among those watching in person was Melissa Sjostedt, of Florida, who read about Sydney’s firework spectaculars in National Geographic a decade ago.

"Ever since that, I've always wanted to see this for real, live, in person," she told the Associated Press.

North Korea’s fireworks went off a day after another party, marking the one-year anniversary of Kim Jong Un's ascension to supreme commander. Hong Kong was hosting its biggest bash ever with a $1.6 million fireworks display. In Japan, bells at temples rang 108 times.

David Moir / Reuters

Up Helly Aa vikings from the Shetland Islands march in the torchlight procession to mark the start of Hogmanay (New Year) celebrations in Edinburgh on Dec. 30.

In India, outrage over the fatal gang-rape of a young woman tempered celebrations. 

"The Indian army, air force and navy have decided to cancel all the parties planned to welcome the new year," a senior official told Agence France Presse. "They want to dedicate the last day of the year to the gang-rape victim."

Ashish Gupta, 35, an accountant, said it would be too difficult to enjoy the traditional revelry.

"This New Year is not going to be the same for me and many of my friends," he said.

The Associated Press and NBC News' Stacy Connor contributed to this report.

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Rescue crews were still looking for victims Thursday after a tornado touched down in the outskirts of Auckland, New Zealand's largest city, killing three people and tearing through some 150 homes, local media reported.

At least seven people were hospitalized, the New Zealand Herald reported.

The tornado, driven by a powerful storm cell, tore concrete slabs from a building site and dropped them onto a truck, killing two people inside, a fire services spokesman said. A third person was killed by a falling tree.

Rescue teams were searching a school site for workers thought to be trapped beneath fallen concrete blocks in the west Auckland suburb of Hobsonville.

"I saw it coming across the river, the air went very electric and the sky went black. And then the wind started to whistle. This was like a juggernaut roaring through here," witness Suzanne McFadden told New Zealand's Newstalk ZB radio.

Hobsonville is the site of a new town center near Auckland, which is home to 1.3 million people, roughly a third of the New Zealand population.

Nigel Marple / Reuters

Rescue workers inspect the scene where two men were crushed to death in a truck when a tornado struck the outskirts of Auckland, New Zealand, on Thursday.

Photoblog: Storm slams New Zealand

Military personnel were going from door to door in the area to check if more people were trapped and authorities warned of more severe weather to come later on Thursday.

New Zealand has been hit by several natural disasters in recent years, including a magnitude 6.3 earthquake that struck the southern city of Christchurch in 2011, killing 185 people. Another tornado in Auckland last May killed one person.

The Christchurch quake caused damage worth NZ$15 billion to insurers, making it the country's costliest natural disaster. 

Reuters contributed to this report.

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